


your head resting heavy on your single bed

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Five Times, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “Do you want to talk about them,” Ray offers. “That sometimes helps.”Nora lets out a noise, not quite a laugh, but dismissive all the same. That was the last thing she wanted to do. “It won’t help."(Or five times they couldn't sleep.)





	your head resting heavy on your single bed

**Author's Note:**

> If there's any typos blame Rachel's cat that likes to walk across keyboards.

 

1

It is not the first time that she wakes from a nightmare, the ghost of a scream on her lips, darting up from her bed in a panic.

But it is the first time, in a long time, that she hasn’t been alone when she does so.

“Nora?”

The image from the nightmare is too clear in her head, and she acts on impulse, her hands coming up in a panic to protect herself. The magic in her veins thumming to life, shielding her from the potential threat that her mind has only just begun to perceive. 

It takes her a moment to assess her surroundings, to remember where she was, and more specifically  _ why  _ she wasn’t alone. She’d spent so long running, ever since her escape from the Time Bureau, not looking back, and not staying in the same place for too long that even this, the small comfort of waking up in a hotel room, was a lot.

Nora lets out a breath, a little broken, shakey as she does so, and focuses on the figure in the other bed. 

Ray Palmer.

That’s right. He was here with her.

Because he chose believing in her over the Legends. Something that Nora could barely fathom. She was far from innocent, well aware of her crimes against humanity and all of time, well aware of the darkness that lingered inside of her and kept her up at night. 

But this time she was wrongly accused.

And he had believed her.

He is here because he believes in her.

Nora slowly lowers her hands. Willing them not to shake as she does so, settling them against the bedsheets.

“Go back to sleep,” Nora mumbles. Not an order or a command, there’s no fight behind her words.

Which is probably why it is so easy for Ray to ignore them. 

“It’s okay,” Ray insists.

Even though it’s not.

Nora knows that much.

Knows that this, the nightmares that have kept her awake too many nights to count, the nightmares that only came after she was on the run, after she lost her father and Mallus and any purpose that she had ever had in life, is a sign of weakness.

Nora cannot afford to be weak.

Not now.

Not ever.

She closes her eyes, trying to chase the shadows from her vision. They linger there, against the back of her eyelids, pinpricks of darkness that she cannot escape from. 

“Nora, you can talk to me,” Ray prompts once more, voice soft, an offering of peace. She can hear the concern in his tone. Of course, he would be concerned. If there was one thing that Nora knew about Ray, it was his soft heart, and the way he looked at her when he thought that she wasn’t looking.

Concern.

Not that she might be a danger to others.

For he seems to be the only one that believes she is not the cause of all this chaos that has been going on lately.

No, concern for her. 

“I’m fine,” Nora says, even though her voice is shaking, even though she does not feel fine. 

She can still feel the panic of moments before. Her legs and lungs aching like she really had been running again. Her heart pounding loud in her chest, a hammering noise that she is honestly shocked he cannot hear. 

“I’m fine,” Nora insists again, more for herself than for Ray this time. 

When she opens her eyes, he’s moved closer, sitting now on the edge of her bed. Concerned expression still in place. She avoids his gaze, instead focuses on the rest of him. The way his hair is slightly messed up from sleep, squashed flat on one side. It is easier to focus on this, than to focus on what all of this means.

Ray, being here.

Choosing to believe in her.

Worried about the way her nightmares are haunting her. 

“Do you want to talk about them,” Ray offers. “That sometimes helps.”

Nora lets out a noise, not quite a laugh, but dismissive all the same. That was the  _ last  _ thing she wanted to do. 

“It won’t help,” she informs him.

“You don’t know-”

“I do,” Nora cuts him off. “It’s - they’re Mallus, it’s not something that is ever going to go away.”

It’s a lie.

Sort of.

In a way.

A lie that is easier than the truth.

Because she knows what he will assume. That she is haunted by the demon that had possessed her since she was thirteen years old. Haunted by what she had done under Mallus’ control, or those she had lost. 

Not what she really felt.

The emptiness that was all consuming, the lack of a familiar voice in the back of her head, the feeling of running, powerless and alone.

He wouldn’t understand.

He couldn’t.

So she lets him assume what is easier.

“Mallus is gone,” Ray tells her, “He can’t hurt you anymore.” 

A part of her wishes it was all as easy as he made it seem. 

  
  
  


2 

She can feel the Waverider around her, the dull hum of the ship, soft echoes of machinery throughout the space, the dry stale air of having been cooped up for too long, the feeling of bed sheets crisp and clean against her body, the feeling of not being alone.

Not ever being alone again. 

She can’t sleep.

Too many thoughts occupying the space inside of Nora’s head to allow her even a moment of peace. 

The feeling that she should be on the run again, that she shouldn't stay here, despite Ray’s reassurances that the Legends won’t turn her back into the Bureau, and that they can help her get to the bottom of this and find whoever is so clearly trying to frame her.

It was a lot to process.

And while Ray’s suggestion of sleeping it off had felt good at the time, a time when Nora had been willing to take any and all excuses to avoid  _ hanging out  _ with the Legends any longer. But now… Here in a bed that was far too big for just one person, she can’t help but wonder if it was a mistake.

At least being up and strategizing had given her mind something to be occupied with. 

She tries to focus on the sounds of Ray sleeping. He had insisted on sleeping on the floor, once it was clear that there was no actual room for Nora to have on the ship, and that she would have to bunk with someone for the time being. 

_ Someone,  _ they had said, as if it had not been obvious from the beginning that if Nora was staying anywhere on this ship, other than the Brig or the Med Bay, it was going to be with Ray.

Of course he had offered.

And of course he had taken the floor. 

Something Nora had been thankful for in the moment, wanting to cling to that last shred of independence that she had. Only now she couldn’t sleep, and the empty space in the bed beside her just made Nora feel lonely.

“Screw it,” Nora mutters, under her breath, before rising from the bed, grabbing a blanket and pillows as she goes.

It doesn’t take much. 

A few steps really, before she’s where Ray is laying on the ground. She joins him, laying her pillow down beside his own, and taking the space next to him.

Ray wakes slightly at her movements, his voice heavy with sleep, as he asks, “Nora, what are you-”

“Bad dream,” she says, it’s an excuse, not entirely true. Though Nora is certain that if she had been able to fall asleep, all she would have found was nightmares. That’s all she ever seems to be able to find lately. 

The floor isn’t really comfortable. 

A little cold, if she’s being honest, even with the blanket that she had grabbed before coming down here. 

But when Ray puts his arm around her, pulling her close and in, and Nora settles herself against him, the cold doesn’t seem to matter as much. Nothing really seems to matter. All the voices in her head, all the doubts and insecurities slip away, replaced with something else. Something soft and warm that settles tight in her chest as she lays there next to Ray. 

He doesn’t ask if she wants to talk about the nightmares.

Not this time.

She swears she feels the ghost of a kiss being pressed to the top of her head, before she finally manages to fall asleep.

  
  
  


3

She wakes with a start. 

Not screaming this time, which the rational part of her mind wants to count as progress.

Instead it’s panic, unused energy in her chest, lungs burning as she gasps and tries to remember how to breathe, body hot, her sleep shirt sticking to her back. She can’t remember what the dream was about, whether it was the usual sort or something else entirely. Somehow, not remembering makes her feel worse.

Nora tries to take a deep breath, calming like Ray normally tries to suggest that she take, but all she can manage is a sharp gasp and another and-

“You’re having a panic attack, Miss Darhk.”

Oddly enough, Gideon’s voice helps Nora ground herself, and even though her lungs still ache, and she can’t manage to take a full and deep breath, she manages enough to sass back the AI that she’s certain will never like her, “Really? Never would have guessed that.” 

“You had a nightmare,” Gideon continues. 

“Not helping.” 

She swears she isn’t imagining it, but the AI sounds almost smug as she replies, “Your heart rate has begun to calm since I started talking, evidence would suggest otherwise.” 

Nora brings her left hand up to press against her chest, the pounding of her heart a little less than before. Her breath a little easier to catch. 

“Should I alert-”

“No,” Nora says quickly. “Please, no, just lights.”

The lights come a moment later. Illuminating the room that she shares with Ray, at least normally. At the moment he is nowhere to be found. Something Nora probably should have noticed the second that she woke up, but she had been too caught up in her inability to catch her breath to realize that something was amiss.

Now though… 

“Where’s-”

“Doctor Palmer is still in his lab,” Gideon answer before Nora can even finish her question.

_ Still _ .

There’s a small note of judgement in Gideon’s voice. 

Nora understands that, after all, it seems hours ago that Nora had left him to his work for the night. Ray insisting that he wouldn’t be much longer. She wasn’t really all that surprised if she was being honest with herself. Nora had come to realize that this, working too late into the night, was the usual for Ray. 

Nora nods at that before pushing herself up and out of the bed.

There’s no way she was going to be able to get back to sleep, not with the lingering feeling of the nightmare in the back of her mind, a foggy horror filled haze…. At least, not without Ray here with her. 

She briefly contemplates asking Gideon what her nightmare was about. Ray had informed her early on that Gideon monitored the dreams of everyone on the ship, monitored a lot more than just that, and while at first it had felt like an invasion of privacy….

And at moments it still does…. 

Nora would have to admit that there are some situations where having an all knowing AI around wasn’t the worst thing ever.

Not that she would admit that anywhere that Gideon could hear it. 

She tugs off her sweat soaked tank top, grabbing one of Ray’s shirts instead. She swears he owns infinite copies off the same shirt, which as someone that lives on a ship that can fabricate clothing at no cost, Nora could not fathom. Then again, maybe there was something to it. The soft cotton of Ray’s shirt, the scent of him that lingers on it, a small comfort. 

“Do you want to warn Ray that I’m on my way,” Nora asks, as she heads to the door. “Or should we surprise him?”

“Seeing as Doctor Palmer has been staring at the same whiteboard for the past forty-eight minutes and thirteen seconds, he could use the surprise.” 

“I can work with that.” 

The path from the room they share to Ray’s lab isn’t far. One of the perks of living in  _ science quarters.  _ Logically that would be enough to attempt a busy minded scientist back to bed, but apparently that was not the case as far as Ray was concerned. 

Nora stops at the entrance to the lab for a moment. 

Watching Ray, he’s still awake, still working away at something. Standing in front whiteboard full of numbers and figures that don’t make any sense to Nora. It’s moments like this that make her feel a little lost, all too aware of the fact that she never actually got an education beyond that of a seventh grader, thanks to the whole demonic possession for twenty years situation. 

And Ray was so smart, had multiple PhDs, could talk for hours about things that didn’t make any sort of sense to Nora.

Though for all that intelligence, sometimes he still managed to get stuck in his head, especially when the problem he was working on hit a little too close to home. Nora may not know what everything on his whiteboard meant, but she knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to protect her, in the only way he knew how. Trying to make sense of magic through science, even despite both Nora and John insisting that magic didn’t work that way. 

“How exactly are you still awake,” Nora says, announcing her presence as she enters the lab. 

“Coffee,” Ray offers, gesturing towards her with the thermos in his hand. A sign that Ray really did intend to make this a sleepless night. “I’ve just got one more thing to figure out and then-”

“You said that hours ago,” Nora points out. “You said you’d just be a little bit longer.” 

Ray at least has it in him to look slightly guilty at that. “Right. I did say that, technically… It’s not already morning time is it?”

Nora shrugs. It’s hard to tell time on a  _ time  _ ship, especially when they were floating in the temporal zone. 

She steps closer to Ray, taking the thermos of coffee from his hands, and drinking some for herself. It’s not particularly good. She’s not entirely certain what he puts inside of his coffee, but it’s not sugary and sweet, so definitely not the way that Nora likes it.

He catches her look of distaste at the coffee, smiling softly at her in a way that only  _ he  _ can get away with. “I could have told you that you weren’t going to like it.” 

Nora rolls her eyes at him.

Unwilling to admit that he would have been right.

“Make me a cup that’s tolerable,” Nora says, “And I’ll try to listen to you explain whatever complicated science nonsense you’re stuck on to me?” 

She needs this.

This distraction.

And he seems to sense as much, smiling at her in a way that makes her heartbeat with something so different from the terrible way it had beat before. She thinks it just might be happiness. 

“I’ll make a scientist of you yet.”

Nora laughs a little at that. “In your dreams maybe.”

  
  
  


4

“Nora?”

The sound of her name cuts through the foggy of her sleeping mind.

Softly spoken, more of a mumbled thing. 

But still there, clear, in Ray’s voice.

“Nora.” 

Her name again.. She shifts slightly, forcing herself to wake up, to assess the situation around her. It’s dark in the room, but she can make out the outlines of the shape that she knows to be Ray next to her. Can feel his restlessness in bed, the way he can’t seem to be having an easy time sleeping, her name falling from his lips once again.

She can’t help but feel a sense of panic inside of her.

That Ray’s having a nightmare about her.

That she’s hurting him.

It wouldn’t be the first time she had hurt him. She wouldn’t even be able to blame him. Back before, when they had been on different sides and Nora had been under the control of her father and Mallus, she had hurt Ray, nearly killed him on more than one occasion.

If he was having nightmares about that well… She deserved it. 

“Lights at five percent,” Nora says, whispering the words, trusting that Gideon will hear them and respond accordingly.

She does, the lights coming up ever so lightly. Just enough to make out Ray next to her. 

Nora has never woken someone else up from their own nightmare before. Normally she’s the one haunted by her own demons. To see Ray like this, vulnerable, afraid of something… It’s a lot.

A part of her wants to try to ignore it. Or to leave and give him space (especially if his nightmares are about her). But another part of her knows that she can’t do that.

He always stays and tries to comfort her, despite Nora’s own reluctance to let herself be comforted. 

“Ray,” she says, softly, and then a little louder, reaching out to lay her hand against his arm. Not shaking him awake, but there, a grounding presence, something real. “Ray. It’s okay.” 

It’s an impulse, probably a mistake, but she uses a bit of her magic, just a push, a pulse of it, where her hand is pressed against Ray’s arm. She’s not very good with soothing magic, didn’t have the right teachers for that sort of thing, but she tries something close enough.

Soft, like an alarm clock.

Something to pull him out of it.

It works, a moment later, Ray stops suffering at the hands of his nightmare and wakes up. Not the sudden and terrible way Nora normally wakes from hers. But softly, the way he would were it any other dream.

Any other night. 

Except it’s not, because she had woken up to Ray having a nightmare that was about  _ her _ . 

The reminder of that makes all of her relief at having woken him go away at once.

“Nora?”

Her name again. 

Suddenly her least favorite word. 

“Sorry,” Nora says quickly, pulling her hand back from Ray and moving to shift away from him. The bed which normally seems so big and spacious seems so much smaller now that she wants to be anywhere but here. “I - I didn’t mean - You were having a nightmare.” 

Ray’s still half asleep. 

Not panicked really. 

Though he’s watching her in the low light of the room. When he reaches across the space of the bed to grab her Nora can’t help but flinch back instinctively. A mistake, she realizes, a moment later when Ray’s expression turns from one of sleepy confusion to guilt.

When that’s the last thing  _ he  _ should be feeling.

If anyone was guilty it was her. 

“I’m sorry,” Nora says again. “I can - I should go.” 

Even as she says the words there’s a reluctance to leave the bed.

She watches Ray’s hand, the one that had reached out for her, where it now rests against the sheet. Palm flat against the bedsheets, the space that Nora normally occupies. 

When he speaks, his tone is soft, worried, “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Nora says quickly, “No, of course not.” 

“Then why…” He trails off. The implication clear. 

It hurts to admit it. Hurts to have to ask. But she needs to know the answer, needs to know if she was the monster keeping him from a good night's sleep. “You said my name, in your dream, and I thought maybe it was about… About me, before, back when Mallus was in control.” 

“Oh.”

“Oh?” 

Ray shifts to sitting up properly, and Nora mirrors his movements. There’s a serious look on his face, which can only mean her suspicions were correct. Nora hates the way her body betrays her, her eyes burning slightly at the thought of it.

She’s known for far too long that she wasn’t meant for happiness. That she didn’t deserve this. That she didn’t deserve him. 

But to have to have it all come to an end so soon. 

She doesn’t even realize the tears are falling until his hand is there, soft against her cheek brushing the tears away.

It’s only here. Only with him that she allows herself to feel this vulnerable. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, again, because what else is there to say.

When Ray pulls her in, this time she goes willingly, presses herself up against his chest. Tries to fight back the tears that are still threatening to spill. 

Even as he tells her, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Nora shakes her head at that, but she refuses to pull away from Ray. If this was the last time he would ever hold her then she wanted to at least hold onto the moment, if only for a little bit longer. 

“Your nightmare, I-”

“My nightmare was about you,” Ray cuts her off, softly, but still steady and persistent. So that she can’t ignore his words. “And it was about before, about when Mallus had control of you, but it wasn’t… You weren’t hurting me?”

“I don’t understand,” Nora says, unable to hide her confusion. 

When Ray pulls back and away from her she lets him, even though it hurts, looks up to meet his eyes as he speaks. Noting the serious expression there, even here in the dead of the night, with lowlights and sleep clothes.

“It was about losing you, about that moment, when I had lost you before I even truly had you.” 

Of all the things that she had expected, that was somehow not it.

She forgot sometimes that that had happened. That there was a universe, a time, when Nora had died so that Mallus could ascend. Where she had been the one lost. And where Ray had done everything in his power to change that. 

“I keep having these dreams, where I’m too late to save you, where I lose you,” he admits. So open and honest and true, in a way that Nora can never manage to be. She’s not sure how he does it. Remains this good and true in spite of everything awful that always seems to happen to them.

“I’m here,” Nora says, wishing her voice didn’t shake.

That she didn’t feel such shock and sadness at the idea of being wanted.

At the idea that his nightmares were about losing her.

“I’m safe.”

  
  
  


5

She wakes not with a scream or a gasp, but with tears in her eyes. Tears that burn and tumble down her cheeks. And the memory of it all. A dream that wasn’t quite a nightmare, but that was close. The way she had felt it all so clearly inside of her, a cold feeling that had seemed to freeze her from the inside out, a world tinted in a familiar shade of blue, and a loneliness that had consumed her.

But she’s not alone.

She hasn’t been alone for a long time, and that makes all the difference. 

He’s there. Holding onto her, having been woken up from her nightmare at some point, rubbing small circles into her back, whispering reassurances that she can barely hear over the roaring in her own mind.

But they’re there.

But he’s there. 

“Ray?”

“I’ve got you, it’s okay. You’re safe.” 

_ Safe _ .

She’s not certain the last time she felt safe. If ever before coming here, before Ray came into her life and changed things. She feels it here, in his arms, in the middle of the night with tears in her eyes. 

“I wish this was easier,” Nora says, softly. 

It’s a fools wish. 

Nothing ever gets easier.

Not really, not for them.

But there’s safety here, in the dead of the night, in a space that belongs to just the two of them.

“I don’t mind,” Ray offers, just as soft. “I like being able to be here for you.” 

Nora tries to laugh at that, but the sound is weak, no real fire behind it. “Aren’t you going to ask if I want to talk about it?”

She can feel when Ray shrugs a little. 

He hasn’t asked in months. Has always known what her answer would be. And Nora couldn’t blame him. Normally she would try to push it away, try to play it off as nothing, as just another one of the usual but this time…

This time when he asks, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Nora tries, for the first time in forever, she tries, “It’s different every time. Sometimes it’s my dad, losing him all over again, or disappointing him, or…” failing him, letting him die in her place. “...Sometimes it’s the asylum, and the doctors, and  _ preparing  _ myself for Mallus…”

Ray holds her a little bit tighter at that, and she knows if she looked up at his face that there would be anger there. Angry at the people who hurt her, at the fact that somewhere out there in the expanse of time there was still another version of her, a young girl being torn apart by the demon in her head. A young girl that Ray had tried to save, and still blames himself for not being able to, even now, what has been over twenty years later for Nora. 

They’ve had that discussion before, or tried to, stops and starts of unfinished sentences and feelings of regret that Nora knows they will have to discuss more later. But not now. Not tonight.

So she continues even though it hurts, “Sometimes it’s the Time Bureau coming after me, being on the run again, being locked up for all of time in some cell with no escape… Sometimes it’s the Legends realizing that I’m more a burden and-”

“I’d never let that happen,” Ray cuts her off, unable to keep quiet in fact of his protective instincts. 

Nora knows that he’s being sincere. He’s stood up for her time and time again in front of his team. Insisted that he would leave them for her. That if it came down to choosing, he would choose her, time and time again. 

Which was why - “Sometimes it’s you, sometimes you realize what a monster I truly am and how - how I-” she can’t finish the sentence, can’t make the words come out. They choke up her throat, suffocating her, the fear that if she says them now, he will realize the sense in her words. 

That he will leave and she will be alone once more. 

“I love you.” 

Her heart stops for a second, as he says those words, the words that have never been spoken between them before. Sounding so sure of himself, so honest, that Nora forgets how to breathe. Forgets how to exist as a person. 

“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone else,” he continues, in spite of her inability to respond. “I’ll always love you, and nothing you can do, nothing you have done will ever change that. I promise.”

She can’t hide the insecurity from her voice when she asks, “How can you be so sure?”

“Because there’s good inside of you, good that I’ve been able to see since the first time I saw you.”

  
  
  


+1

He’s used to this, waking up in the middle of the night because of Nora.

Doesn’t mind it. Is happy just to be able to help her through the nightmares.

Only this time, it isn’t a nightmare. 

There’s no crying, no gasps of pain, no screaming out in the middle of the night. Just a soft mumble from where she’s curled up against him. Her head tucked against his chest, he hand holding lightly onto his sleep shirt to ground herself even in her dreams.

A part of him cannot help but wonder how he got so lucky as to have such a perfect woman in his bed each night. Beautiful, even like this, in slightly restless sleep.

Slightly, because she’s not having a nightmare.

No, just mumbling a little.

Talking in her sleep, as she’s known to, even though he’s never mentioned it to her in the morning. If she knew, she might try to find a way to stop it, get Gideon to come up with a fix, or even feel bad about waking Ray. 

He doesn’t mind. 

Truly.

It’s sort of cute in a way. 

Normally she mumbles little things. 

His name is one that comes up often, Ray unable to keep from smiling each time he hears his name on her lips, spoken in a soft and happy way in the dead of the night. 

Sometimes it’s sarcastic little quips, because Nora cannot help but be sarcastic even in her dreams. Complaining about the other Legends even when she’s peacefully at rest. Which Ray supposes he can’t really fault her for, the Legends were a bit of an acquired taste.

But other times, it’s more… 

“Mallus will rise again,” Nora mumbles, half asleep and ominous, in a way that used to worry him, but now just brings a small smile to his face. He loves Nora, weird quirks and all. “He will consume the souls of the weak.”  

His reply is soft enough that he knows she won’t hear her, but he can’t help himself. “Thanks for the heads up.”

  
  
  



End file.
